Transformers: Heritage
by Doubleclouder
Summary: This fic is not related to G1 events. It's some different. You'll see no familiar characters here. No familiar places, no events, no names - except Scorponogue, maybe... So, it's a new story. Let it talk for itself.


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I'd like to thank my translators first.

Elena, Becky – thanks to you!!! I'd never translate it myself… Would never even get such idea… Thank you very much! I know how different Russian and English are, and how hard is to translate between these two languages.

So, Elena, Becky, thank you a lot!

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**Transformers: Heritage**

**Prologue.**

Cybertron drifted slowly in the vastness of space. Its metal surface glinted in the rays of a distant sun. There was day there; its other side was ruled by night... however, such notions were quite preposterous. Firstly, the sun was rather far away from the planet and yielded little heat and light; secondly, Cybertronians managed just fine without its light and heat, for they were Transformers.

Someplace near the equator, on the shadowed side there was a flash. But a sparkle, compared to the planet's bulk. The tiny glittering point streaked away, accelerating faster and faster. Soon, another dot rose above the North pole, where the planet's capital was. Gaining speed, it rushed in the wake of the first. They were ships. The first was launched by Scorponogue the Great, intended to claim the plentiful energy resources of a remote "Earth" world. The crew of the second one had the order to intercept Scorponogue's ship.

Both ships were at top speed: Decepticons pressed towards reaching their goal in secret - they weren't aware of the pursuit yet - Autobots strived to apprehend them.

The blackness of space on their way dissolved in a shining patch - the Space Bridge was activated - a new technology that allowed travel of millions of light years, in only a few hours by space warping. The Decepticon's ship entered the portal. Several seconds later the Autobot ship slipped into the already closing Gates.

An hour later, both ships emerged from hyperspace in the Solar system, near Mars' orbit. And there, the Decepticons discovered the interceptor. They knew that their battle cruiser had enough firepower to wipe out half of Cybertron but it was of no use against an interceptor in open space. The cruiser headed towards Earth at full speed, seeking cover in the atmosphere. The interceptor tore off in its wake at full speed too. The Autobots knew as well that, if the cruiser were to reach Earth, it would be the end. The cruiser would reduce them to dust particles in the atmosphere.

They overtook the cruiser close to Moon. One shot, one shot only, could be fired. But it was a lucky one; a great chunk of the enemy ship was torn off and fell to the Moon. Still, the cruiser, having lost a considerable part of its mass, increased its speed and started to get away.

Hitting range depended on energy levels, and they were low. A dilemma arose – to shut the energy off from the engines and re-route it to weapons, but what if they missed, what then? It won't be possible to gain on the cruiser. Or to shut the energy off from the weapons and give it to the engines? But then how do they fight? The commander decided:

"All energy to engines. Prepare magnet locks. We're going for a ram attack. We have only one option left – to ram the enemy ship, secure it and board it. We win – we leave it behind. We lose... if we lose, those who survive, are to send the locked ships down through the atmosphere, to the surface. And make sure no one escapes! To arms!"

**Episode One.**

Blue planet Earth. The gem of Solar system. It presents a splendid view from outer space.

But to those who hovered now in its orbit, hidden from all imaginable and unimaginable tracking systems, were uninterested by the planet's beauty. They didn't care if it was unique in all of the star systems around. They cared for one thing only - energon. For this was why they were sweeping the far reaches of space, why they lingered in the Solar system now.

There were three of them: an imposing space fighter, elongated, angular and predatory, a tank, that was latched onto the fighter's underside, and a starship of odd design with broad wings.

These three bore the Decepticon insignia. The insignia wasn't drawn, nor etched, nor burned onto their armour - for it appears by itself when the heart hardens, when a hand rises against the weak, and thoughts turn cold: to betray or not to betray.

Three Decepticons hovered in orbit; they were looking for energon. There was a signal, and a rather strong one at that; still its source wasn't easy to locate straight away. Per se, only the large-winged starship was searching for the signal, for only he was able to sense energon. His wings acted as locators; their surface was picking up the Earth's magnetic field's irregularities and was converting them into a convenient data form.

The search range was narrowing down. Not in the Southern hemisphere, that can be left aside. Not in the tropics. Not on the opposite side of the planet… «Finally!» The signal's source was fixed precisely to the northern part of a mountain ridge that bisected one of the Northern hemisphere's continents.

"Down!" – It was an order. The Decepticons plummeted down into atmosphere, disguising themselves and distorting possible electromagnetic fields from any detectors.

On the Earth's surface, at a base in Murmansk, those on duty detected electromagnetic disturbances in the atmosphere. The disturbances were moving towards the surface. Where to? According to calculations for solid mass - Northern Ural. Much further North than any military installation or settlement. But these… are for solid objects. What about a plasmas body behavior? An urgent message was sent to a higher rank – to Colonel Bystrov. An answer came – "Keep watching". The electromagnetic disturbances, two in number, fell through the atmosphere, displaying solid body physics, and then suddenly disappeared out of the radar's range, falling to the surface.

The report was sent to the Colonel quickly. An order returned: "Dispatch the search party to the crash site". The search party was dispatched within 15 minutes of the order. The plane was ready to drop them exactly at the objects' crash site.

Having burst through the atmosphere, the Decepticons switched their field distorters off and buzzed straight to the signal's source, the tank still hanging from under one of the planes' fuselage.

Upon reaching their destination, they transformed and started their familiar routine of work, beginning with working out a way to force their way to the source. Using lasers was not an option – energon could detonate. Therefore, they had to dig with their bare hands.

The three had a lot of experience of plundering. Every time they repeated the same trick – in disguise, they sent large energon accumulations out from the orbit, such as storage facilities, factories, mining sites; they didn't mind taking plain natural deposits either.

Their leader, a triplechanger named Swingfire, could detect even the slightest of signals. Mastodont, able to turn into a tank bristling with cannons, used brute force to achieve success. The third member of the gang, the angular predatory space fighter, was known as Hawk and covered their operations from air.

Swingfire, who had a knack for planetary geology, as much as was needed for planetary pilfering, was perplexed; it was a wild, untamed place here... Where had the local energon come from? It didn't look like there were a storehouse, a factory or a mine - it looked like no one had treaded these places a couple hundred of years or so. An energon-field? First thing is, at a height as great as this, virtually no energon can be found. And the second - in this system it shouldn't have been present at the third planet from the sun at all. Well, maybe a little bit of it. The third thing was that it wasn't giving off the signal as a deposit would. This energon was clustered too tightly and the signal was too keen, though somewhat dampened by layers of ice and rock. Plus, quite a hollow resonated not far off...

"Hey, Chief, have a look!"

"What is it?"

"Look it, Chief!" Mastodont obviously had found something of interest. Swingfire walked up to him. In the hole, punched through by Mastodont's enormous fists, something metallic glistened. With the Decepticon sigil on it.

"What is this all about, Chief?"

"I would like to know it myself!" Swingfire began thinking again; if there is the Decepticon insignia, then, someone had already been here. Who? And why to leave the sigil? And the metal too, seems to be of the type that is in use on Cybertron. So, a storage then? Whose? Scorponogue's? Ought to scarper then. And if it isn't? Now, Scorponogue is far from here, fighting at Cybertron…

"Listen up! Let's dig it further out, see what it is and go from there."

"Yes, Chief!" said Mastodont and Hawk in unison.

Their fists were put to use again; splinters of ice and rock flew. A minute or two later,

"Chief, I've found a console! Opening now!" that was Mastodont. Pleased. «Click! Pshht!» – The panel with the sigil slid up slowly. The Decepticons went inside.

It was a ship. A cruiser. An old one, of the pre-war times, when Scorponogue had still been gaining power and preparing to crush the Autobots. It's been about eighty years since then in Earth time. The Decepticons moved deeper into the ship. It was clear now that the energon deposits were the ship's supply, necessary for all its systems working.

In the next section the Decepticons saw the battle marks; scorch marks from laser fire, nicks from swords, body outlines embedded into the bulkheads. The farther they went, the more numerous the marks were. No bodies were left, as if somebody had carried them out. All the doors were wide open.

In the next section there was a surprise- the nosecone of another ship, sticking out of the wall. With an Autobot insignia. Together they managed to get its boarding hatch open. This wasn't a nosecone alone: under the ice, in the deadlock, two ships lay.

"Y'know what. Let's split up." Swingfire decided. "You, Hawk, go to our cruiser's engines, drain the energon. You, Mastodont, move it - to the Autobots' one, drain it too.

" What about ya, Boss?"

"And I will try to locate any functional data carriers. Maybe I'll find out what happened here."

The three split. Mastodont trudged into the Autobot ship's innards, Hawk - to the cruiser's stern, whileSwingfire lingered to ponder "_Now, where is the bridge in this ship? Those Autoweirdos make everything so difficult! Okay, let's try from here.._." He started walking at random.

"A-ha! Lucky me!" he found himself in a room stuffed with all kinds of equipment, computers, data carriers.

" Mastodont!" he called via comm-link, breaking the radio silence.

"I had this idea but if you drain the energon now, the computers won't work. So find the engines and wait for my word."

"Yep, Chief!"

"_Sooo. Lessee, what do they have here and where..."_ - Swingfire started flipping switches and pressing buttons.

Several minutes later, one of monitors came to life. It wasn't the onboard ship's computer, it wasn't even an auxiliary navigator or controlling computer, still it had access to a variety of different systems, though offline at the moment.

Swingfire tried rebooting the controlling modules.

However strange, it helped. Devices began coming on, starting their customary humming, chirping and clicking.

_-Systems check running... systems check complete. No damages in the compartment area detected. Objects status: reconstruction due one of five._ - The system sounded.

"Reconstruction!" Swingfire reasoned that, if the gears turned, then they might still be of use. On the display, strings of data began to scroll across the screen on the status of some super-advanced system and indicators of energy-consumption levels, the latter immediately shot up.

One of the devices near the rear wall flashed with multi-coloured lights, sizzled, whistled, there were lightnings and plasma cracking, then a very strong discharge resounded, and all went still. Only the computer's display stayed on.

"What the..?! Computer, status!"

_-Reconstruction due... zero of four. –_

"Of five!"

_-Zero of four. One object is reconstructed. -_

At that moment Hawk put his message on air/Here, Hawk broadcasted/was heard over the radio:

"Chief, there's a hole here! Almost half the ship is missing!"

"What of the energon?!"

"Not here, it seems..."

"Go, seek."

"Yes, Chief!" Hawk went silent...

Swingfire thought for a brief moment.

"System, where is the reconstructed object?"

_-Box number four. -_

"Identify!"

_-Password? -_

"What in the blazes! Password?!"

_-ID data classified. -_

"Grrr!" Swingfire punched the console.

"System, open the box!"

_-Cannot open box. Box is open.-_

"Whaaat?!" it came out more like a growl. Swingfire whirled. And lost his footing after a powerful punch landed on him.

" System!" the stranger knew what he was doing, "Status! General! Pass - Earth!"

_Password confirmed. Status: no errors, reconstruction due: three of nineteen. -_

"Reconstruct all! Alarm level one!"

_-Alarm level one engaged. –_

There was a clank in the hallway as the passageway shields were dropped.

All exchange transpired while Swingfire was trying to sit up. Now a new strong punch dropped him. He fell, rolled, and hit a bulkhead. Above him stood a young transformer. An Autobot. Then, in the next moment, Mastodont's voice pierced the airwaves:

"Chief! Hatches've closed! I'm cut off!"

"Cut the power! Quick!"

"Can't. There're shields here..."

"Break through! Hurry! Autobots are here! Heeya!" Swingfire leapt from the floor, throwing the Autobot aside. A blaster appeared in his hand, a skew volley blasted all the devices.

"No!" The Autobot flung all his energies into the fight. Hits rained down.

"System! Status! Respond! System!" but the computers kept silent, only showering sparks around the two fighting 'bots.

Swingfire had a hard time countering the young warrior's attacks. Behind, from the hallway, somebody breezed in to the compartment.

"Freeze!"

"Yeah, right!" Swingfire abruptly jerked aside, escaping the line of fire and dashed to the exit, knocking the second enemy down.

"Get out! Now! All of you! Hawk, Mastodont, out! Transform!" he took on his planetary tank form and rushed to the exit.

Behind him there were sounds of muted explosions and the screeching of torn metal – that was Mastodont tearing through.

Bursting like a bullet through the hallways of both ships, Swingfire rushed out under the pale northern sky. Above his head Hawk hovered; jet streams from planet-suited engines blew snowdrifts apart. "_Neat trick. Gotta remember that_" Swingfire noted and filed the observation away in the back of his mind for future use.

"Transform!" he froze at the hatch, blasters at the ready - to cover Mastodont.

The screeching got louder, coming closer. Soon, out of the ship's remnants Mastodont jumped out. Laser beams flashed in his wake.

"We're out of here! Transform!" Swingfire leapt into the sky. Following him, Hawk soared up, grabbing Mastodont and pulling him up with him. Seconds after, already far below, three tiny figures spilled out from the cruiser's wreck. A few laser shots sent their way did not reach the Decepticons, fleeing in a steep curve.


End file.
